A High Court judge has refused to make an order requiring the wife of solicitor Michael Lynn to repay a €3.85 million loan.
The Bank of Scotland (Ireland) advanced the loan to Ms Bríd Murphy and Michael Lynn to buy Glenlion House, Thormanby Road, in Howth, Co Dublin.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly has sent the case for full hearing after finding that Ms Murphy had established a triable issue demonstrating the bank's negligence.
She accused the bank of failing to make the necessary checks about several substantial sums loaned to Mr Lynn from 2004, saying that had it been thorough, it would have found undertakings were not honoured and therefore never have loaned the couple the €3.85 million sum in April 2007.
Court proceedings against solicitor Michael Lynn began in October when the Law Society, acting on under the Solicitors Act, received the report of an authorised officer appointed on September 20th last to investigate Mr Lynn's practice.
The officer reported a minimum accounts deficit on August 31st, 2007, of €702,830, but in an affidavit said she believed the actual deficit on the account "is much more than this".
The Law Society, which closed Mr Lynn's practice and has secured an order for him to stop practising as a lawyer, has so far secured information about 78 properties on which Mr Lynn borrowed.
The society has frozen his assets after concern about his property dealings disclosed "acts of dishonesty relating to client monies".
Last Wednesday the judge granted Ulster Bank judgment in the sum of around €6.3 million against Mr Lynn arising from three loans given to him from September 2006.